The Golden Fleece

The Camerons of Ben Ohau Station have been sending their wool to the wealthy of Europe since 1897 Today Ben Ohau ultra-fine products adorn models on Europe’s catwalks.

Words: Kate Coughlan  Photographs: Guy Frederick

THE FLAT ALLUVIAL PLAINS between Twizel and the Ben Ohau Range, left in the wake of a departing glacier 10,000 years back, are a solitary landscape. In the pre-dawn, clouds churning high above the plains glow a warming pink before turning the brightest daisy yellow. The rising sun strikes the distant Southern Alps, illuminating peak after peak in turn as though walking them forward for their moment of fame before alighting upon yet another magnificent mountain.

This is the lonely, beautiful Mackenzie Basin. It is far from anywhere yet these tracts of golden tussock are familiar to millions of cinema-goers as the Fields of Pelennor, upon which raged the bloody mounted horse battles in The Return of the King, the final in the trilogy Lord of the Rings. Here too cavorted hundreds of Orcs snorting, snarling and stamping their feet.

Mostly these plains and the Ben Ohau Range rising to the west are home to the mighty merino, the sheep breed that produces fine wool keenly sought by European woollen mills. The first generation of Camerons exported merino fleece to the Bradford mills in 1897 where it was spun into yarn for men’s suiting. Today the fourth generation of Camerons on Ben Ohau still export merino wool from their traditional flock, but today’s operation is very different from that of Simon’s forefathers.

A decade ago, and after a few very hard years, Simon Cameron and his wife Priscilla took stock of their financial situation. It looked grim. They realized, with a sickening glimpse into the future, that things had to change in order for them to remain viable on the land Simon’s family had farmed for more than 100 years. They looked at every opportunity to improve income.

Their choices were limited; at 550m above sea level the 4900ha station suffers a three-week hoar frost period in mid-winter (frosts that can plunge temperatures to -32ºC) and average rainfall varying from 48 to 228cms. A climate this harsh offers few horticultural options.

Simon and Priscilla Cameron at home on the range.

Amongst some of the unique assets of Ben Ohau Station that figured in their consideration was a large, sarked, heart-rimu shed Simon’s grandfather had built in the 1920s in which he intended to breed stud merinos. Just as the shed construction was completed, the Depression set in and the expansion of the stud flock was never completed. Over the years the Cameron family investigated a variety of schemes to improve farm income by utilizing grandfather’s shed; rearing chickens and pigs were definitely not the favoured options and no other schemes made financial sense.

And so the shed remained empty for 80 years until six years ago Simon took a research trip to Australia, organized by Gordy MacMaster, his Aussie sheep classer, and returned full of enthusiasm for a radical idea. He wanted to produce ultra-ultra fine merino wool by housing a small selection of the station’s existing elite merino flock.

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